1/72 Hasegawa Prowler by Everett McEwan

This is Hasegawa's re-issue of their 1/72nd EA-6B with new decals, four True Details GRU-7 Ejection seats and an Eduard Photo Etch set. The kit was started and then put on the shelf several times due to frustration before I eventually finished it almost a year latter. Detailing in 1/72nd can be very difficult, especially when things don't fit, parts break, you have painting problems, decal problems, and difficult tiny detail parts. I don't recommend doing all this to the sane.

I started with the cockpit and Eduard's PE instrument panel which replaces the Hasegawa decals, although there is side and a center counsel in the rear tub that Hasegawa provides. The Eduard set also includes the keypads for in-between the knees of the rear ECMOs, but you have to add the base to them (from plastic).

I chose to add detail to the rear bulkheads using evergreen plastic strips and tubing. I also added the canopy locks and the fairing around the rear of each cockpit associated with it. The True Details GRU-7 ejection seat doesn't fit into the Prowler's cockpit tub (I think because Hasegawa made it too small....not True Detail) and I had to sand down the sides of the seat. I figured this would be better than using the kit seats. First though I did actually cut the tub into pieces in an effort to fit the seats, and then found that the fuselage was too narrow to fit the wider tub (even though the fit check I did before showed a lot of room to play with). Unfortunately when I glued the tub back together it was even smaller (due to the plastic that I had cut out). Eventually I got everything fitting together (although the seats are tight against the sides, not exactly accurate) and I kept on plugging ahead.

After I finished the cockpit (except the rear bulkheads) and painted the seats, I started to move onto the avionics bay that the Eduard set includes, only to find a big fit problem here too. I don't think Eduard ever built this kit because they would have seen that the top of the bay hits the bottom of the cockpit tub. In order to make it fit (tightly), I had to sand the tub so much that the top of the bay will almost poke through. I found that the center of the tub under the Pilot/Nav center counsel is the worst spot. I worked this down with a file to make a channel for the edge of the bay to touch it. The avionics boxes are provided in the Eduard set, and details in the bay were added with wire with the Lox bottle being a lead weight painted and glued into the mount Eduard provided.

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Onto the exterior of the kit, I joined up the halves and the fit was decent. At this point it is worth noting that the kit has a few external inaccuracies, especially for me to make a block 89 aircraft (I used detail and scale's drawings on the differences for this).

First and most obviously is the small intake on the rear right side above the engine exhaust (looking at it head on), should be deleted, and the vent just above the exhaust should be deleted. The left side is still the same but there is an extra, small, intake in between the other intake and the ventral fin that is missing and needs to be added.

Also underneath in the front there needs to be two "pipe" intakes added over the "triangle" intakes just behind the nose gear well on either side, they are same size and shape as the ones on either side of the engine access panels behind the boarding ladders.

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I of course drilled out all of the kit intakes (the small ones mentioned above). Also there is a panel line at the rear underside near the engine exhaust that is missing, this is for an access hatch that is removed often and shows up quite well in every photograph of the rear.

The exhaust nozzles themselves are inaccurate, being one part and not two, the outer being a notched piece that is part of the hatch mentioned above, and the inner a straight pipe. To correct this I cut the existing nozzle in this shape and latter added the inner pipe (Evergreen Tube) after painting the metal fairing on the fuselage sides.